Do You Need Planning Permission to Change a Conservatory Roof?
In most cases, no. Changing the roof of a conservatory is permitted development under Class C of the GPDO 2015, not Class A, and Class C carries two limits and three situations that remove the right altogether.
Householder planning application fee · England · this page
no published figure and we will not invent one
GapOur price register carries no planning fee row at all. Checked 20 August 2026.
Do you need planning permission to change a conservatory roof?
Usually not. Replacing the roof of a conservatory on a house is permitted development under Class C of Part 1, Schedule 2 of the GPDO 2015, so no application is needed, provided the new roof stays inside the Class C limits and your property is not one of the exceptions below.
That is the planning answer and it is the easy half. The harder half is that the same job is almost always notifiable building work, which is a separate consent from a separate body, and the two are routinely confused in sales conversations. Who actually signs it off is LABC or an RBCA, not FENSA. If you are still deciding what to put up there, the choices are set out on alternative conservatory roofs.
Do I need planning permission to put a tiled roof on my conservatory?
The same answer, for the same reason: normally no. A tiled or solid roof is still an alteration to the roof of a dwellinghouse, so it is still Class C. The material is not what planning looks at. What planning looks at is the shape it leaves behind, which is why the two Class C limits are about protrusion and height rather than about tiles, glass or polycarbonate.
There is one practical difference. A tiled roof is heavier and often deeper in build-up than the panel it replaces, so it is the change most likely to push past the 0.15 m protrusion limit or to sit higher than the original roof. Ask the installer, in writing, what the finished ridge height will be against the existing one. That single question resolves the planning risk on most jobs.
Why it is Class C and not Class A
This is the commonest factual error published in this category.
Class A of Part 1 is the extension class, and it is the one most conservatory advice reaches for. It does not apply here, because Class A expressly excludes alterations to a roof at paragraph A.1(k)(iv). The class that does apply is Class C, whose scope is set out in one line.
“any other alteration to the roof of a dwellinghouse”
Class C then sets two limits. The alteration must not protrude more than 0.15 m beyond the plane of the original roof slope, and it must not exceed the highest part of the original roof. Both are measured against the original roof, not against whatever is there now, which matters if the conservatory has already been altered once.
One grey area we will flag rather than settle. Where a solid roof increases the height of the conservatory, authorities differ on whether they treat it under Class C or pull it into Class A. We have found no primary source that settles it, so we do not publish an answer. If your new roof will be taller than the old one, a written pre-application response from your local planning authority is worth more than any page on the internet, including this one.
The five situations where you do need permission
Two are limits on the work. Three are removals of the right, and they depend on the property rather than on the roof.
- 1. The new roof protrudes more than 0.15 m beyond the plane of the original roof slope. This is the limit a deep tiled build-up is most likely to breach.
- 2. The new roof would sit higher than the highest part of the original roof. A raised ridge to gain pitch is the usual cause.
- 3. The property is on Article 2(3) designated land. Conservation areas, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Broads and World Heritage Sites, as article 2(3) of the GPDO defines them.
- 4. The building is listed. Permitted development rights are removed, and listed building consent is a separate consent you need as well as, not instead of, planning permission.
- 5. An Article 4 direction is in force. These are made by the local authority over a defined area and they withdraw specific permitted development rights. Your authority holds the register.
Two things worth adding that are not on the list. A planning condition on the original consent can remove permitted development rights on a specific property, so check the decision notice for the house or the conservatory if you have it. And flats and maisonettes are outside Part 1 altogether, which is a dwellinghouse class.
What it costs, and the figure we will not give you
If the work is permitted development, there is no planning application and no planning fee. If it is not, there is a statutory householder application fee, and we do not publish it, because our price register holds no planning row at all.
| Fee | Low | High | Evidence | Sources and dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Householder planning application, England | no figure | no figure | Gap | Our register carries no planning fee row |
| Prior approval, Larger Home Extension route | no figure | no figure | Gap | Same absence, and it rarely applies to a roof |
| Building control approval on a solid roof conversion, a different thing entirely | £200 | £800 | Reasonably | Two publishers, 2026 and March 2026 |
Sources: two UK cost publishers, 2026 and March 2026, for the building control line, which they price 2.0x apart on the floor and 1.74x apart on the ceiling, so there is no defensible typical. Checked 20 August 2026.
Do not read the building control fee as a planning fee. They are different consents, from different bodies, doing different jobs: planning asks what the building looks like from outside, building control asks whether it is safe and warm enough to be built. Quoting one as the other is how a homeowner ends up telling a council officer a number that does not exist. What would close our gap: the current statutory householder application fee, published, cited and dated.
Ask what the finished ridge height will be, then get it priced
Six questions, roof condition first, phone number last. They live on the calculator, not on this page.
use the Conservatory Cost Calculator
Or get roof replacement quotes and put the height question to each installer before you compare their numbers. The one who answers it in writing is the one whose quotation you can actually rely on.
Check what your roof will cost, or find conservatory roofers near you. We pass your details to vetted installers so they can quote, and we are paid when they do. how we make money.
Building regulations are a separate test, and they usually apply
Permitted development says nobody needs to approve the appearance. It says nothing about whether the work is notifiable. Take the glazing out of a conservatory roof and the structure stops being the thing the Building Regulations exempt, the work becomes a material alteration, and it has to be notified to building control and signed off at the end.
So the common outcome on a solid roof conversion is: no planning application, and a building control application. That is not a contradiction, it is two regimes answering two different questions. When the exemption applies to a conservatory in the first place is set out on do you need building regulations for a conservatory, and the sign-off route for the roof job itself is on the building control page linked at the top of this one.
There is a structural question underneath both of them, and no consent regime will ask it for you: whether your existing frames can carry the load. That is a survey question, and it is the one that changes prices on conservatory roofs more than the paperwork ever will.
Questions people ask first
Is changing a conservatory roof permitted development?
Why do so many pages say Class A?
How much is the planning application fee?
I live in a conservation area. Does that change things?
Do the same rules apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Sources for this page
All retrieved and checked 20 August 2026.
The full list, with what each source is trusted for, is on our sources. For the money side of the decision rather than the paperwork, see what a conservatory costs. Checked 20 August 2026, next check due 20 November 2026.
Find out what yours costs
Six questions, about sixty seconds, and an estimate built from published UK figures with every source shown. Then up to four local installers can quote you, if you want them to.